Back in May, Riverton City officials
launched the “Best of Riverton Photo Contest” with the goal of having residents
capture, through photography, the very best the city has to offer. More than 120
residents submitted photographs, which will be used to tell Riverton’s story in
the city’s future marketing and communications efforts.

The contest, which
ran through Aug. 3, was part of Riverton officials’ overarching campaign to
increase community participation and involvement.

“We’ve recently adopted a vision statement: While preserving
our past, citizens, families, businesses and leaders unite in building a
community where we can live, work and play. And those are our categories: live,
work and service, and play,” said Saxton.

One overall winning photograph was
selected from all the submissions, as well as a winner from each of the three
categories. The judging committee members were not able to see the names of the
various photographers, which led to one local photographer winning prizes in
two separate categories.

“Picking the Right Club,” by
Riverton resident Denise Johnson, took first prize, earning Johnson a $300
award.

“The overall winner was perhaps the hardest to choose,”
Saxton said. “We had some really great photos competing for that, including the
category winners, but this one was really the standout from the committee’s
perspective.”

Resident Jacob Shamy took the two
$100 prizes for both the live and work/service categories, with his two photos
“Sunset Flowers” and “Friday Night Fun.” Resident Jenifer Miller’s action shot
“Riverton Baseball” won the play category, also with a $100 prize.

“These were all just taken with an iPhone, weren’t they?”
joked Councilmember Brent Johnson, as the winning photographs were revealed at
a city council meeting on Sept. 4.

The winning photos will be hung,
with attribution, in City Hall and posted on the city’s social media
accounts.

“Citizen involvement is a priority
for the city,” said Councilwoman Tricia Tingey in an official city press
release. “We want residents to be able to have a hand in telling Riverton’s
story by participating in the photo contest.”